Allahabad High Court Postpones UP PSC Mains Exam, Directs Fresh Prelims Exam Merit Lists For Various Posts

On Thursday, the Allahabad High Court directed the postponement of the mains exam of Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission for various posts till a fresh merit list of the preliminary examination is prepared again.

While dealing with the issues regarding non-selection of reserved category candidates (OBC) in the unreserved category in the list prepared by the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission after the preliminary examination, Justice Ajit Kumar held

“In view of above, all these petitions succeed and are allowed to the extent that respondent U.P. Public Service Commission shall re-draw the merit list of the preliminary examination result of suitable candidates to qualify for next stage of final examination for the purposes of selection and appointment against vacancies advertised vide advertisement No. A-3/E-1/2024 dated 10.4.2024 and thereafter only Commission shall be holding main examination on the basis of such revised preliminary examination result.”

Petitioners had applied against 609 posts in the Departments under the State, namely Assistant Engineer (Civil/ Mechanical) and likewise posts falling in Group-B, Grade-2 post of District Horticulture Officer/ Food Processing Officer in the department of Agriculture and Senior Technical Assistant, Group – A post in different branches of Chemistry/ Botany/ Agronomy/ Plant Protection and Development.

After the publication of the list of qualifying candidates based on preliminary examination, petitioners approached the Court challenging the list on grounds that qualifying only 7358 candidates against 609 vacancies was against the rules in the advertisement.

The main grievance was that OBC candidates who had scored higher than unreserved category candidates were placed in the reserved category only and not in the unreserved category. It was argued that unreserved category is not an exclusive category to oust the qualifying reserved category candidates at the stage of preliminary examination which may be merely a screen test.

It was also argued that the ratio of 1:15 in qualifying the candidates for the mains examination was not followed by UPPSC.

Perusing the chart for number of qualifications to be made after the preliminary round as against the actual qualifications made by UPPSC, the Court observed that though in the unreserved category less number of qualifying candidates have been placed, in other categories, those having minimum prescribed efficiency have been placed in the list to qualify for main examination in the ratio of 1:15. It noted that this was how for reserved categories the candidates exceeding the 1:15 ratio had been placed.

At the outset, the Court observed that: “Age relaxation and concession in fee for submission of application form provided to reserve category candidates is only statutory concession and not relaxation as such referred to under the circular of the Public Service Commission dated 9th January, 2020 and clause 14 of the advertisement.”

Perusing various judgments, the Court observed that the settled position of law is that if reserved category candidates have scored at par/ more than unreserved category candidates in efficiency test then they must be included in the merit list for unreserved category. It held that any candidate performing better or equal to general category candidate automatically falls in that category.

“A candidate may have applied under reserved category but if he is not benefited by any relaxation other than the age and concession in fee at the preliminary examination result, then he can always enter unreserved category not only at the stage of final selection but at the same time when preliminary examination/screening test is held which may be only to shortlist candidates to find suitable candidates.”

The Court further held that a level playing field is when a reserved category candidate who matches the cut off marks of the unreserved category is moved to the unreserved category.

“One must not forget that equality before law and equal protection of laws means “likes to be treated alike” and hence whoever competes with the candidates of open category and falls within the cutoff of that category as may be prescribed, would constitute a class for limited purposes to from suitable candidates' group within the meaning of Article 14 of the Constitution. Confining such a candidate to the reserved category only for the reason that list has been published category-wise, would definitely amount to discrimination.”

Accordingly, the Court directed the Commission to re-draw the merit list of the preliminary examination result of suitable candidates to qualify for next stage of final examination for the purposes of selection and postpone the main exam, which was scheduled for Sunday, till such merit list is prepared.

Case Title: Rajat Maurya And 41 Others Versus State Of U.P. And 6 Others

Appearances: Ashok Khare, Senior Advocate assisted by Himanshu Singh, counsel for petitioners, Anoop Trivedi, Senior Advocate assisted by Nipun Singh, Naman Agarwal and Ritaj Vikram Singh, Advocates for the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission and P.K. Srivastava, Additional Chief Standing Counsel for State of Uttar Pradesh